We would like to introduce you to Holly, the watercolor naturalist who does watercolor painting as part of her hobbies. 
Holly just recently finished painting a three-toed sloth and uploaded it to Youtube. She talks about the biology of sloths, the differences between different species, their conservation, and much more! 
Holly talks about KSTR towards the end of the video and also mentioned that she will be donating 15% of proceeds of each print sale of this painting to KSTR! That's amazing!
You can view the time-lapse sloth painting by clicking the video.
You can also help Holly create more quality videos as well as help KSTR by heading over to Holly's Etsy website and getting your very own sloth painting!

Get your painting here: 
https://www.etsy.com/listing/608925704/sloth-art-sloth-nursery-art-watercolor

Started by two nine-year-old girls, and supported today by millions of children and adults alike, Kids Saving the Rainforest is a non-profit organization focused on protecting Earth’s luscious rainforests and the species inside them. We work to improve education about the ecological importance of rainforests and create programs that protect their native animals. There are several successful KSTR projects to support including the Wildlife Sanctuary, Rescue Center and Reforestation Program. Here are just five of the many different ways to support us.

1. Buy something from our wishlist

Our Wish List contains items that are needed in our sanctuary to help rescued animals recover and be released back into the wild faster. Items as simple as medical scissors, kitchen scales or travel maps can all make huge differences in our fight to protect these animals. Check out our list on Amazon here.

1. Volunteer

If you can’t donate money, but still have a passion for the environment and an interest in changing the world, come volunteer with KSTR! We wouldn’t be where we are today if it weren’t for the help of all our volunteers. There are opportunities for supporters of all ages and availabilities. Come to the sanctuary for a night or stay for a month, or even enlist in our internship program! Any time that you can offer is highly valued and can you help us save the rainforest.

1. Rescue a Sloth

For just $35, you can sponsor a furry sloth friend through his rehabilitation at our sanctuary until we can release him back into the wild. KSTR has a much higher release rate than the average sanctuary, returning more than half of our animals back into the wild. For a slightly larger donation, you can also sponsor small mammals, birds, or monkeys. Check out our sponsorship page to see the other rescue options.

1. Tour our Wildlife Sanctuary

Come for a visit to see all the hard work we’ve been putting into saving the animals and restoring the rainforest to its natural glory. This tour is a great way to get up close and personal with monkeys like the endangered Titi Squirrel, Whiteface Capuchin, Spiders, Marmosets, and Tamarins! You will also see parrots and kinkajous, and experience the reason why we’re so passionate about saving these wonderful creatures.

1. Organize a fundraiser

Set up your own fundraising event to inspire donations from the community, but get creative with it! A tree planting event is a great way to interest others in KSTR and leave a lasting impact. Ask a local nursery to donate or discount some saplings and organize some friends and shovels and plant them for community members in exchange for a small donation. Use a free event planning tool to keep track of your donations and share your event online. 

Any way that you can offer your support can go a long way and is greatly appreciated. Check out the “Our Projects” tab on our website for more information and to learn how important the work that you’re supporting is.
​AUTHOR: CARA BENSON
COMMUNITY MANAGER 
HTTPS://WWW.EVENTBRITE.COM/​

Help us wish the President of Kids Saving the Rainforest a Happy Birthday!
Jennifer Rice helped her daughter Janine Licare and her friend Aislin Livingstone begin an organization that would help children save the rainforest.
19 years later this organization has grown into having a Wildlife rescue center, a volunteer center, building Wildlife bridges and rescuing and rehabilitating around 200 animals a year.
Watch an interview with her where she explains the great work she has done.
Please help us celebrate her great work by donating to our #GlobalGivingcampaign at the link below:https://www.globalgiving.org/projects/kids-saving-the-rainforest-clinic-and-reforestation/

AUTHOR: WENDY RUBIANO

By Karma Casey
Hello again Quepolandia readers! Its Karma, the spokes-kid for Kids Saving The Rainforest. Today, we are going to be talking a little bit about feeding wildlife, and how it affects them. You might think feeding wildlife is harmless fun, but you are actually hurting the animals and putting them in danger. Here are ten reasons not to feed wildlife you may not have thought of.

1. Monkeys are very susceptible to diseases on human hands. They can even die from the bacteria transferred off your hand that has no effect on you. We can also get diseases from them.
2. Migration to human-populated areas increases the risk of dog attacks, electrocutions, and being hit by cars.
3. Abnormal feeding leads to aggressive behavior.
4. Contrary to the stereotype, bananas are terrible for monkeys! Bananas have a lot of sugar in them . The sugar leads to aggression, sugar addiction, and sometimes their teeth will even rot out!
5. Feeding wildlife creates a dangerous dependency on humans. That diminishes the animal’s survival abilities. Their whole lives are based around finding food in the wild, and feeding them changes their habits of looking for wild foods such as seeds, insects, small lizards, and fruits growing in trees.
6. Contact with humans facilitates poaching and the pet trade.
7. Pregnant monkeys who are fed bananas, will not give birth to healthy babies. The babies will be malnourished, or die before birth.
8. Monkeys need to travel an average of 17 kilometers each day to be in good physical condition. Once people start feeding them, they stop traveling for their natural foraging.
9. Not only do we pass disease on to wildlife, but they can pass diseases to us as well.
10. The Law of the Wildlife says that it is prohibited to feed wild animals unless they are going to die. This is the rainforest. There is plenty of food everywhere, and animals don’t need our help to get it!

Costa Rica is a great place to visit to see wildlife, but we have to respect them and keep them wild and free! If you are a visitor to our area, please respect the wildlife and never try to feed or touch any animal. Feeding a wild animal one time can a have long-lasting impact on that animal’s life. If they are not expecting food from humans, you will be able to observe and photograph wildlife in a much more natural way.
Another great tip is not to use your flash when photographing animals. It bothers their eyes, especially nocturnal animals like the two-fingered sloth. The flash blinds them, and they can’t see where they are going, which is probably to the safety of a tree. Crowding animals also
really stresses them out!

If you are a local, please help us educate our visitors on how to be respectful to wildlife.
Contact us at volunteer@kstr.org if you would like a hand-out to hang up about reasons not to feed wildlife in your hotel, business, or rental home. Well, now you know why it is bad to feed the wildlife. I hope that if you have fed the wildlife, you have now learned from your mistakes. Everyone can change for the better! If you see someone feeding wildlife, try to talk to them about all the really bad effects this can have on that animal. Even if you are a kid, use your voice and speak up for wildlife! Keep our planet natural, and healthy! Don’t forget, if you find injured or orphaned wildlife, contact our veterinarian via What’s App at our emergency animal line, 88-ANIMAL. See you next time!

For Earth Day KSTR wants to give this gift to you. How to plant a tree for Earth Day.  
​If you just follow these simple instructions you can plant a tree for Earth Day!

Or let us do the hard work and plant a tree in our Rainforest!

​

Kids Saving the Rainforest was featured in CityRefinery , a lifestyle blog following the adventures of a beautiful family who visited our wildlife sanctuary while in Costa Rica to learn about wildlife & how to protect it.
Read about it here!

Last Chance to Donate for the Global Giving AcceleratorThere are only 2 days left in GlobalGiving’s Accelerator! Time is running out! Make your donation today!
Thank you for your continued support and effort!

Donate Today!

KSTR New Spokes kid Karma's March Article.Karma writes a monthly column in the magazine educating readers on important conservation issues and keeping tourists and locals alike up to date on what's going at KSTR. If you''d like to read her latest article, check it out here! http://www.quepolandia.com/

Read the Article!

Earth Day! 
This Earth Day the community of Manuel Antonio & Quepos will celebrate in the most beautiful way ever experienced.

A day that celebrates world-wide all efforts for enviromental protection and raises awareness for important causes incl. wildlife conservation, ending of plastic pollution, climate change and more. 

To celebrate we have united all local NGO´s and experts to offer the community a weekend filled with enviromental education, activities, work-shops, talks and much more. 

This event - you should not miss. Check the schedule to sign up for the activities you like to join. 

United we are - the following NGO´s, movements and specialist welcome you - 

Check out the event!

By Karma Casey

Hello again! This is Karma from Kids Saving The Rainforest. This month I am going to talk a little bit about our beautiful oceans!

Here at KSTR, we mostly spend our time rescuing local wildlife and planting trees, but we care about the ocean too! Recently, some of our volunteers pitched in helping a beach cleanup with another great local group, Operation Rich Coast. They organize lots of beach cleanups in lots of different areas, so if you would like to help them out on their next beach clean-up follow them on Facebook at facebook.com/operationrichcoast.

I am a very lucky person because I get to go to the Manuel Antonio beach almost every day! One day I was walking, and I found a piece of coral on the ground. It was white, and it still had a little bit of purple on it. I learned at my school, Life Project Education, that white coral is dead coral. I wondered, was this piece of coral being killed by something that humans had done?

Coral reefs are very important. They provide shelter, and food for thousands of animals, and they also protect the coastline from wave action, and storms. All the time, people are discovering coral reef plants and animals can provide important medicines for things like arthritis, cancer, Alzheimer’s, and other diseases. More than one fifth of the world’s coral reefs have already been destroyed. At this rate, who knows what we are losing!

• MARCH 7, 2018
• BLOG,COSTA RICA WILDLIFE,QUEPOS AND MANUEL ANTONIO

By KSTR Volunteer Margarita Samsonova, Kids Saving The Rainforest

Kids Saving The RainforestKids Saving the Rainforest is in the process of establishing a reintroduction program for squirrel monkeys. Central American squirrel monkeys, also known as Saimiri oerstedi, are nearly extinct in Panama and are threatened in Costa Rica. There are only 4,000 individuals living in the wild, mostly in Manuel Antonio and Corcovado National Parks, located on Pacific Coast of Costa Rica.

The low population of Central American squirrel monkeys makes reintroduction programs of these species very important to sustain the population and help reproduction. In order for the release to be successful, the monkey’s behavior and its predator responses are tested to see what chance the animal has to survive in the wild. The project requires sustained long term observations and research to ensure a successful reintroduction into the wild.

One of our volunteers, Margarita Samsonova, is dedicating her time to observing candidates for release and has been testing their ability to respond to predators. The predator experiments were set on the monkeys six times using the scents of predators who are also rehabilitating in the rescue center. Scents of animals who hunt squirrel monkeys in Costa Rica such as dogs, white- faced monkeys, kinkajous and hawks were used along with their recorded vocalizations to test predator response. Pieces of cloth were placed in the predators’ enclosures overnight and then placed with the vocal recordings in the squirrel monkey enclosure the next day.

A few of the squirrel monkeys had previously been kept as pets, so it is crucial to observe their reaction and behavior to get an idea of whether the release would be successful or not. It was observed that only four of the six candidates displayed “appropriate” behavior and reacted to the predator sound and smell the same as a squirrel monkey in the wild would. Two of those candidates didn’t approach the cloth with scent, meaning that they sensed the predators’ presence and didn’t want to risk danger.

​The other two squirrel monkeys, after some time observing the cloth, did get the food from it but retreated to eat it, which could mean that they saw no presence of predators and decided to quickly grab the food—a normal behavior of squirrel monkeys in the wild. The remaining two individuals came right to the cloth once it was put out; they didn’t react to any vocalizations and didn’t move from the cloth to eat the food, which could mean that those animals were domesticated and may have lost their natural instinct.

The testing of behavior will continue until the beginning of April and the planned release is in mid-April. It is believed that pre-release monitoring and experiments will help to determine an estimation of which of the candidates would have high survival rates during reintroduction.